MOSCOW, Idaho » For a moment, University of Hawaii offensive coordinator Nick Rolovich said, he thought he was back in the arena league.
And punter Alex Dunnachie wasn’t sure where he was, saying he has not seen anything like it here in the U.S. or his native Australia.
Welcome to the Kibbie Dome.
Well, officially, it is the Associated Students of the University of Idaho-Kibbie Activity Center, but everybody, and signs on campus, refer to the site of today’s UH-Idaho football game as the Kibbie Dome.
In a state where it seems there is a penchant for unique home fields — witness the blue turf downstate in Boise State’s Bronco Stadium — the Kibbie Dome is the Vandals’ conversation piece.
“Nothing like it,” beams Mike Naccarato, a retired fireman, who has rarely missed a game since it opened in 1975.
Never mind that it really isn’t a dome at all, more of a half-barrel arched roof on a square building, actually. Some have disparaged it as “the barn.” Fresno State coach Pat Hill said it looks like an aircraft hangar, and spiteful Boise State fans have called it an “outhouse.”
Yet, the Vandals faithful revere the multi-use facility that towers above campus. They point out with pride that it is one of only two on-campus “domed” stadiums in major college football and delight in the quizzical looks that visiting teams display when they come out for warm-ups.
It is as far from the other one — Syracuse’s 49,262-seat Carrier Dome — in style and seating capacity as it is in mileage. The Kibbie Dome capacity is listed at 16,000, the smallest in the NCAA Football Bowl Subdivision, and suspicion is that with its new premium seating section that is part of a $30 million, three-year makeover, it might not even hold that.
When it is near capacity and the fans are motivated, the din can be deafening, like sticking your head in a garbage can that somebody is beating on. But with the Vandals at 1-6 and last in the Western Athletic Conference, there hasn’t been much to yell about lately and anything over half-filled today will be a surprise.
But, just in case, head coach Greg McMackin, who coached here in the 1970s, said the Warriors, who are 2-2 in domed stadiums, will be ready with a silent snap count.
Of equal concern, UH coaches say, is how kickers and quarterbacks adapt. “Kickers can freak out in here,” McMackin said. So he and special teams coach Dick Tomey took the punters aside and counseled them on not being overly concerned about the roof at its 14-story height. Supposedly, the biggest dorm on campus, Theophilus Hall, would fit under it.
With Dunnachie, who spent Friday’s practice taking aim at the roof, they might not have needed to worry. He said he relished the “uniqueness of the place,” which has “taken away the variables we usually have to deal with on kicks, the wind and the weather. I can just unload. No excuses here.”
Quarterbacks have to deal with the flat, uncrowned, field and the walls immediately behind the end zone. So close, in fact, that the goal posts are anchored on the walls instead of the turf.
When Colt Brennan threw a UH career-high five interceptions here in 2007, fans taunted the Heisman Trophy candidate with “you can’t hit the broad side of a barn.”
UH won the game 48-20, but the rendering of Brennan human was one more addition to Kibbie Dome lore. Something the Warriors would just as soon not care to expand upon today.
Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.
